In prior art business telecommunications switching systems, call coverage groups are well known. A call coverage group allows a list of telephones to be stored within the switching system to handle calls for a telephone of a principal. When the switching system receives a call for the principal's telephone and the principal's telephone does not answer, the switching system attempts to connect the calling party with the first telephone in the call coverage telephone group. If the first telephone is unavailable, then the second telephone in the call coverage group is selected. In the prior art, the call coverage groups are administered manually.
The prior art call coverage groups have functioned well with wired telephone sets and wireless telephones where the wireless telephone was a second telephone set for a user. In addition, prior art call coverage groups and their administration have functioned well for the traditional business environments where an employee is assigned a desk or a specific location and performs their principal work function at that telephone or location. For example, the traditional environment is for a principal to have a telephone and for the first telephone in the call coverage path for the principal's telephone to be the principal's secretary. The traditional environment is slowly changing. In the emerging business environment, individuals do not have a wired telephone but rather they have a wireless telephone which they carry with them at all times and which is their only telephone set. In addition, employees during the course of a day perform many functions at different locations. For example, a principal's secretary may vary with the time of day. Whereas, the principal's secretary maybe a different individual depending on the time of day; the individual performing the function of being the principal's secretary will be seated in the same physical location as other individuals performing that function. The reason for this is that the principal's secretary primary responsibility is in the emerging business environment is to serve as an administrative assistant whose function also includes being part of the call coverage path. Also, this secretary must be physically close to the principal's office. It is also normally considered quite desirable that the other individuals in the call coverage path also be physically close to the principal for which the call coverage group has been established.